 Welcome everybody. My name is Rob Levin. I'm the current president of Portland Trails and happy to be here tonight. Let's do a little bit of Great Wind Blows. Anyone know that game? It's like a you know elementary school game but a Great Wind Blows. When I say a Great Wind Blows and if you fit the description of what I'm talking about then just stand up okay and then we're gonna celebrate everybody. So first of all a Great Wind Blows for everyone who is a Portland Trails member. Stand up. Okay now another Great Wind Blows for everyone who is a Portland Trails trail volunteer. Stand up. Alright round of applause for our trail volunteer. A Great Wind Blows for everyone who's volunteered at an event. Stand up. Alright thank you. People are volunteering tonight. A Great Wind Blows for anyone who's presenting tonight as part of the 15 by 15. Alright. Thank you guys. And a Great Wind Blows for anyone who is not a member yet but is a member to be. Like by the end of the evening. We've got membership. We have membership forms in the back. We really want to we want to not be obnoxious about it but we really want you to join. Membership is the lifeblood of our trail system. So please think about grabbing one on your way out or during it during the break and then you'll be in the loop for all these kind of cool events in the future. So I had a spy checking out who stood. Now okay we're not gonna be like that but let me get this down one. Okay so real quick just I wanted to talk about a few highlights from last year. Just just covering some of the basics. I had we had a long list so I had to winnow it down but we have some new trail connections in Westbrook especially at the skate park there and at the Blue Spruce Development. Anyone been to either of these? We got somebody skate park. Blue Spruce. Okay. How's it looking? Good. Alright so check it out on the website. Jamie's been working hard with Daniel out there and we want people to go check go explore some of these new places. So that was one thing that happened last year. We upgraded the Four River Trail between Hobart Street and Thompson's Point. Who's been on the new and improved Four River Trail? Alright not too many hands. We got I actually haven't so check that out. The whole idea is to make it more commuter friendly for people traveling into town from from Westbrook. So check that out. Lots going on. We have a new website. Who's seen our new website? Alright Andy Abrams was a real big volunteer help for that. That just launched I think two or three weeks ago. So check out our new website. It's real clean. It looks great. So those are some fun things that happened in 2015. So 2016 who knows why 2016 is special for Portland trails. Not if you're on the board. You got to be you got to be somewhat come on somebody 25 2016. So yes it's our 25th anniversary. All kinds of cool things happening this year. We're having monthly pop-up parties who had cupcakes in January in the park. So things like that are happening. Small things big things having a big party in April Gorp. We're having another party in June. So stay tuned. Lots going on to celebrate our 25th anniversary including including we are trying to secure 25 bequests by the end of our 25th year. You do not have to make good on your bequests by the end of the year. We're asking for people to tell us yes I've updated my will or I've prepared my will for the first time and Portland trails is in it. Then you'll be one of our 25 by 25 right now or somewhere in the high teens. We're getting there but we really need a few more people to step up. So you could be the one. Please think about that. You don't have to be you know you don't have to have fancy estate plan. It can just be a really simple process. So talk to Kara or me if you're interested in hearing more. We also have a brochure leave a trail. It's in the back at the table there so that that has some more information about that. But please consider being one of our 25 by 25. Some other cool things that are happening this year. So we have a new committee a place making committee and that's a that's a reflection of our strategic plan which we finished last year. We decided we want to not just be about getting from point A to point B through traditional trails. We want to also be about making parts of places in Portland special destinations. Sometimes they'll be affiliated or aligned with the trail sometimes not and there's lots going on there. There's some there's some neat new projects that are that are popping up. So you'll hear more about that this year. The other thing is we no longer have a trails committee. I just wanted you guys to know that. Don't be alarmed though. What we actually have is a trails and transportation committee active transportation. We've transformed a little bit. The trails committee is now the trails and active transportation committee reflecting again the strategic plan focus on making it easier to get around Portland for commuting and recreation. Not just getting going on a trail through the woods but getting from one neighborhood to the other. So I think that's really exciting. There's a lot of energy around that and you'll hear more about it this year. We've got two new board members. Jennifer Cuchill. I'm not sure if she's made it tonight or Bill Hall. I'm not sure if Bill's here but we'll be voting on them. We're excited about them. And I'm done with my list. I will keep it moving and hand it over to Wendy. Thanks. Hi. Good evening. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. I have the pleasure of going through really the bulk of the boring annual meeting part of things. So get ready for that. The reality though is that undoubtedly some of our most dedicated volunteers are in fact our board members. We certainly could not achieve all that we do without their passion, their enthusiasm, their energy and hard work. So I would like to first start by introducing our board and if you're here please stand so that you can be recognized. So Rob Levin, our president. My name is Wendy Surstead, the vice president. Matt Ball, our treasurer, just texted that he's stuck in New York so unfortunately will not be joining us this evening. Rachel Alfont, our secretary. Andy Abrams, our immediate past president in the back there. Mark Arienti, the chairperson of our trails and active transportation committee. Jennifer Cutschel, Nate Dyer, Nate here. Tom Farmer. Steve Gall is here in the front. Alex Yeagerman, thank you. Tom Jewel, one of our co-founders. Kate O'Brien, hi Kate. John Osborn. Stephen Wells is here. And Rob Whitten. So thank you so very much to all of our board for your commitment and ongoing advocacy for Portland Trails. Along with our board we also have a wonderfully dedicated team of advisors who are very helpful on all kinds of different fronts and subjects bringing lots of expertise to the organization. Again I'm going to go through the list if you're here. Love to have you stand up and be recognized. So we have Colin Baker, Roger Burley, very long time supporter, David Buchanan, Heather Chandler, Jim Cohen, Elizabeth Ehrenfeld, Tom Hyman, Susie Kist, Bob Krug, Wendell Large, hi Bob, David Little, Berna Martin, J. Peter Munro, Phil Poirier, Eliza Cope Nolan, Aurelia Scott, Nathan Smith, one of our co-founders, Richard Spencer, one of our co-founders, Phil Thompson and Lois Winter. Please give these important people a hand. The following board members are up for re-election each with a three-year term. Nate Dyer, Stephen Wells, Rob Levin and John Osborne. I need a motion to accept this slate of trustees for re-election. Any dues paying member of the organization has one vote and you're following in Rob's footsteps if you haven't paid for your membership in the past year you can quickly run to the back table and do so and have a vote. So with that said do I hear a motion for this proposed slate of trustees? Thank you. Do I hear a second? Thank you. Is there any discussion? All right all in favor please say aye. Any opposed? All right thank you very much a unanimous vote and at this point I was going to turn it over to Matt our treasurer but that will not work very well with him in New York so what I will say is that thankfully Portland Trails remains on very sound and solid financial footing thanks certainly in no small part to all of you our members of Portland Trails to all of our corporate supporters and sponsors and to the many foundations whose grants help us to continue doing our work. There is a full financial report on the back table for those of you interested in detailed information absolutely pick up a financial report and let us know if you have any questions just call into the office Kara would be happy to address any questions that you have. So thank you for your support thank you for making financial trails financially strong and continuing in our ability to do great work for Greater Portland. Welcome to the Portland Trails 15 by 15 my name is Kara Waldrick I'm the Executive Director of Portland Trails. Wow you guys are easy this is great. Thank you to Space Gallery for hosting us thank you to CTN Community Television Network for being here and filming tonight's event. Thank you to Legion Square and Standard Bakery for yummy treats out back. Thanks to our members volunteers board members staff and staff families everybody pitches in regularly for Portland Trails including many of you so thank you. This year's our 25th anniversary happy birthday Portland Trails so as a millennial Portland Trails sort of fits the stereotype. Multitasking connected tech savvy special confident team oriented achieving looking for adventure passionate about values and equality. We want instant gratification and recognition and collaboration and transparency. So in the spirit of constant status updates I'll give you a little information about where Portland Trails is right now. We have a new website we have a new property and trails in Westbrook that we aren't going to announce publicly until another month or so so you're on the inside track there. We're doing place-making work in East Bayside throughout this coming year. We're always involved in cycling and walking transportation options in Greater Portland. Sundays on the Boulevard we'll be back in just a few months closing Baxter Boulevard to Autos on Sundays from about 10 to 4. We're celebrating our birthday with pop-up events every month. Hopefully you didn't miss the cupcake party but if you did we have a puppy party coming up pretty soon. And as we get older we're a little more strategic and future oriented than we ever have been before. While we create a lot of fun with what we do we have some pretty serious responsibilities for a 70 mile trail network for improved bike and pedestrian transportation network in Greater Portland for conservation of important local ecosystems and for creating dynamic environmental play and learning opportunities that are developmentally appropriate for children of all ages. And we still have some experience to gain some things to learn some growing up to do in the future of the trails and we need to tell our story better to the million plus users. Wow. We need to better tell that story of a small urban land trust with a big heart and an even bigger footprint. We all have stories to share and tonight you will meet some amazing people who are brave enough to take the challenge to come up here and tell their stories restricted to the 15 by 15 format. For that alone they deserve your admiration. Combined tonight stories will reveal the character of this community. It's easy to see where our neighborhood city policies transportation systems our schools are not doing well. It'd be easy to be complain about that to wine to winch but it takes an entirely different spirit and set of skills to instead see an opportunity and take action to fix it. That's the spirit of tonight's presenters. These are the doers. These are the solution years who resolve problems by creating positive positive processes and outcomes. Portland trails is on is honored tonight to host some of Portland's rock stars. It is their spirit and their tenacity and humor and mindfulness that make Portland trails community unique. Thank you to each of our presenters and thank you to our audience. You guys have a job tonight too. You have to support the break presenters with cheers and thumbs up and yee-ha and whatever spirit moves you. That's helpful when you're up here. You have store. Yeah let's give it another try. You have stories to share of moments when you chose to take action. When you decided to make a difference so we intentionally have an intermission in between the presentations and that's for you to get to know each other to share your story to get a drink to relax have some snacks. But don't be shy during that time. Because our community is strengthened when you share those stories. I'm thrilled tonight to introduce our emcee Tom Nozzle. Tom's an engineer at Ransom Consulting and last year he was right here presenting on bike ped counts. And as some point asked Tom about his huge win in the GORP raffle last year. This year's GORP is April 28th at Arabica on Commercial Street. We hope you'll join us. But first here's Tom and he'll tell you how this all works. Thank you Kara. Thank you. How's everybody doing tonight? Everybody ready to nerd out a little bit on some transportation? Like Kara said I was presenter last year but I haven't done anything in the last year worthy of presentation so they asked me to be the emcee this year and I gratefully accepted. So welcome to the Portland Trails 15 by 15. Tonight we're gonna hear from nine people who are all over the map. Lots of different experience different backgrounds different fields of work. And they're gonna talk about how they're working to improve transportation here in Portland. And these brave people have 15 slides that change every 15 seconds. So it's just under four minutes. They're pre- time. They don't control the timing. They just got to roll with it. Let me tell you it's a lot harder. They're gonna make it look easy but it's a lot harder than it looks. And so we'll hear from five of them first and then we'll have a 15-minute intermission. Like Kara said that's when you get up and talk about what you've just seen. You have three rules to guide you tonight versus cheer wildly for each presenter. The second is listen attentively and discuss passionately. More or less in that order if not at the same time. And also please turn off the ringers for your cell phones. If you haven't done so already please do so now. And presenters when you like I said your presentations are pre-timed. So when you're ready to begin you ring the bell once and the presentation will start. And I've also been instructed to remind you that if you want to turn the farther you get away from the mic the quieter you are. So please try to stay close to the mic if it helps you can remove the mic and if you want to kind of you know walk with it. That's your choice. So without further ado I'd like to introduce back to the stage Kara Waldrich the executive director of Portland Trails. Kara grew up in a much warmer place where outside time was a daily occurrence. At seven years of age her favorite hobbies were climbing trees and having picnics with her dog in the backyard. And her preferred activities have not changed much in the past 30 years. She enjoys riding bikes, kayaking, trail running, skateboarding, cross-country skiing as they are all vehicles to experience the natural world firsthand. Kara's convinced that places shape people as much as people shape places and she also believes that playfulness and laughter are key ingredients for all successful movements. So please welcome back Kara. Warm round of applause. It's funny that this slide is actually the one that's been up this whole time. Sure you're all experts at it now. Alright Pete. I have spent much of my career trying to change people's behavior to help nature. Behavior change is hard. Has anyone here ever tried to give up sugar? It's hard and it's not due to a lack of information that makes it hard. If the goal is to change behavior to, for example, conserve water or fossil fuels more information is not necessarily better or realistic. Information alone does not change behavior. Humans behave inconsistently. I have plenty of nutrition information. I know that cookies and cupcakes will make me feel terrible and yet I still make the wrong choices all the time. So at Portland Trails we focus on three effective strategies to encourage behavior that will make the local human and natural communities more healthy. Relevance, ease and fun. New research on urban places shows that cities with the happiest residents are designed to encourage interaction between diverse people and these communities have accessible nature within a 10 minute walk of every home and business. Sound familiar? Being able to get most places by walking or cycling enables residents and visitors to live without a car. In walkable and bikeable cities, person to person interactions increase dramatically and these exchanges build a more resilient and happy community. This year we are hosting community meetings in East Bayside that enable residents and businesses to determine the neighborhood that they want and then volunteer work days turn those ideas into reality. This grassroots approach is not only necessary on a practical level but core to our philosophy of relevance. People that help build trails and improve ecosystems will ensure their successful future. Not only are we improving infrastructure, a new trail, a pocket park, better storm water, but also a healthier community of empowered people. Often human behavior follows the path of least resistance, whatever's easiest. We try to make healthy choices also the easy one. Trails within a half mile of each home by cracks strategically located. This is not lazy. It's practical. Regardless of walkway design, people take the most direct route and almost no one walks in right angles. At Portland Trails we provide the easy route to get to local destinations. People need to get to school, work in the grocery and they want to get to breweries, coffee shops and restaurants. Portland Trails focuses on these important connections in the trail network because we want it to be easy for people to live without a car. Sometimes though, it's just about fun. If that is also the healthiest choice for people and nature, all the better. When the stairs make music when you walk on them, why would you take the escalator? We can paint crosswalks like a hopscotch board, music notes or a giant zipper. We can make them joyful so that the inner kid in each of us wants to play. And it might just slow drivers down and then we have a safer intersection. Public open and green spaces can be more playful for people of all ages. Play adds joy to life, relieves stress, supercharges learning and connects people to each other. Want to help us make this place more playful? While all of Portland Trails efforts help encourage behavior that will make a healthier community through relevance, ease and fun. We are also making greater Portland more lovable because in the end, we care for that which we love most. Kara was one of my first contacts when I moved to Portland was Kara. She was very kind. She was always very gracious. I'm a main transplant so I put my foot in my mouth pretty often when it comes to pronunciation and main conventions and so on. So when she told me that she was doing with some work with somebody from LA and I was like, Oh, wow, like our Portland Trails. Telling LA how to get it done. She was very kind when she was like, Lewis to know I'm learning to call it. So I appreciated that. Next up we have Heather McCargo. Heather McCargo is the founder and director of the Wild Seed Project. She's an educator with 30 years of experience in plant propagation, landscape design and conservation. Heather loves walking in the woods, hiking up a mountain and puttering in her garden. Her garden is very different from most. She's a long time herb and vegetable gardener. But most of her passion for plants is around native species. The flowers, ferns, shrubs and trees in her yard are the wild type native species and they're always buzzing with some interesting pollinating insect or fluttering with a bird pecking at caterpillars or seeds. She is a voracious reader of environmental writing, travel stories and fiction. Heather moved to Portland from Brooksville a year and a half ago. Before Maine, she and her husband Brian McNiff lived in Massachusetts in California, moving regularly for their work in horticulture and wind engineering. Heather has a teenage son and daughter and a Lithuanian exchange student in her family for the year. And afterwards, I'm going to have to learn a little bit more about wind engineering. So I'll find you during the intermission. Portland trails traveled through some amazing patches of mature woodlands at Evergreen Cemetery, Forre River and Posumskut River, with a diversity of wildflowers, shrubs and trees. Many of these woodland plants do not exist in young horticulture, horticulture and wind that exist in young forests and are relics from pre-colonial times. In other Portland locations, there are open grassy areas with meadows of wildflowers, especially in cemeteries, sites chosen for dry sandy soils. There's hawkweed, violets, bluewoods, wild strawberry and pesicoes. Lots of food for pollinators if they're not mowed. Many parts of the trail make use of more degraded habitat with a mixture of native and invasive species such as native oak and red maple and lots of Asian honeysuckle, knotweed and Norway maple. These areas could support many more native plants, pollinators and songbirds with restoration. The trail also passes through areas that are completely devoid of plants. This is the charming historic part of Portland, but before the streets were paved, there were many more trees. Lack of vegetation raises surface temperatures, causes flooding and supports few creatures. For remnant native habitats to survive into the future, they cannot be isolated. Most pollinators can only travel a few hundred meters. Songbirds need to feed their young the diversity of insects that live on native plants. These isolated patches of native habitat need to be connected. Last winter, Wildtube Project engaged some graduate students to study Portland for the potential to create pollinator quarters of native plants. This map shows the 1900 acres of permeable surface in Portland that are potential pollinator habitat. The student's report called the Portland Pollinator Vision Plan outlines opportunities Portland has to make a network of quarters of native vegetation in the city to enable bees, butterflies, birds and plants to live, reproduce and migrate across the landscape. Anywhere that there is permeable surface, there are native species that can grow, even in tough urban conditions. In the sunny dry strips along roads and sidewalks, plantings of native drought-towing species from sandy or gravelly habitat can thrive. Chokeberry, wild rose, butterfly, milkweed, black-eyed Susan and many other species. These plants would not be mulched but instead have a sandy ground surface so that the ground-nesting pollinators could reproduce. Portland has plenty of opportunities to remove some paving and create bioswale plantings to absorb rainwater, control flooding and filter pollutants before they wash into our coastal waters. Many wetland plants can be flooded and survive dry spells in the same season. Blueverbein, wild iris, swamp milkweed, pussy willow and many other native shrubs attract pollinators, are beautiful and resilient to these tough environments that are wet and dry in the same time. An oak tree is a biodiversity magnet supporting up to 500 species of pollinating insects, birds and animals. Portland needs more street trees. New York City just planted a million trees. If they can do it, we can too. It's going to take a lot of support from all of us but it could happen. No more expansive areas of mulch. There are many woodland plants that thrive in the dense shade of buildings or trees. Purple flowering raspberry, canada anemone, ferns, wood aster, all of these and many other shady sites can be supported with pollinators. Everyone can do something adding native plantings along the sidewalk or in window boxes or pots. Native plants are very interactive with other life. People quickly notice how dynamic these plantings are compared to common garden plants. Imagine the city of Portland with more of the vegetation that makes Maine beautiful and distinct. These habitat plantings would support the migration of pollinating insects and birds and these green corridors would also connect Portlanders with nature on a daily basis. Thank you. Wow! As a civil transportation engineer I'm very familiar with the median island that's all mulch and a couple really sad looking shrubs so if we can get some more native plants in there that would be certainly great. Next up we have got Greg Jordan from the Greater Portland Metro. He is the district manager or just the manager excuse me. Greg is a 20-year veteran of the public transit profession. He got into transit by driving campus buses while in college at the University of Connecticut and from there he got hired at the city of Tepe, Arizona as it was beginning to build one of the best multimodal transportation programs in the west. He moved from Arizona to Portland in 2013 with his wife and son and they look forward to an April move to their new home on Stevens Avenue which is about 50 feet away from a Route 9 bus stop. Thank you. Transit. Let's go let's go. Art and transit we hope to bring more of it to this community for you soon. This is David Marshall's work former counselor of the city of Portland. Great work. We want more art and transit definitely going forward. National trends in transit during the last 20 years there has been a transit renaissance in the U.S. Beyond the major cities we are seeing cities across the country invest heavily in bus rail and transit bike pad infrastructure complete streets and as a result transit use the top line is way up across the country. It is going up here in Portland as well. Transit ridership on Metro's bus routes has reached the 30-year high. You can see the 2008 spike which was brought in by the gas spike in 2008 but we are surging from there and despite low gas prices we are still growing so that's very exciting. Metro's had a long history going back to the streetcar era. Metro was formed actually 50 years ago this year in 1966 but with suburbanization falling transit investment in the withdrawal of several communities from Metro ridership declined in the 80s and 90s. Casco Baylines down Easter Amtrak two clear brands two clear modes of service everybody gets it. The bus system four providers blurred we don't really know who's doing what we're trying to fix this by merging if we can in the near future so there's one single transit agency. This map do you get it no I don't get it. I get this map this is awesome this is clean this is simple this is sort of artistic this is what we need to be doing with our promotional materials and how people engage with our system. It should be easy it should be simple if you take no other word from tonight from my presentation simplicity is our goal going forward. Expansion to Freeport Yarmouth we call it it's the name is coming out soon you'll see it in the press you're pretty soon but Express Bus Service connecting all of these communities starting in June. Very excited about that. Last September we started creating the next generation of transit users the high school students in Portland have started using Metro to get to school. It's awesome. Our next stop is USM. This is not the greatest or most attractive bus shelter in the world but it's better than what we have out there today it's sort of nice it provides shelter 30 of these are going in over the next 12 months thanks to PAX thanks to Geeky Cog and our partners across the region also with our partners at PAX and other in South Portland and others the app is coming in May maybe June I hope May but maybe June this technology I don't know how it works but it works. Electronic fare collection today it's cash only exact change only exact change only tick fare tickets and passes are paper we're moving toward electronic passes smart cars and hopefully mobile devices to access buses going forward. Complete streets I know everybody here gets it definitely I have to applaud the city of Portland in back in 2003 when they approved the congress street bus priority corridor new bus shelters curb extensions what we call inline bus stops so that buses don't have to pull off and get delayed as they travel through a heavy heavily congested corridor you can see the bus in there this is not really too much traffic here but the purpose of the inline stops is of course to speed up transit everybody accused of transit of being too slow we got to do things to speed it up this very crude sort of depiction if you could hit the button a few more times our system is pretty radial focused on Portland hit it again we need to be focusing on the network at a sort of multi-layered way of looking at things downtown circulation neighborhood circulation still maintaining those high intense corridors with high frequency service but also installing and introducing cross-down service so you can go from Westbrook to the main mall without being dragged into Portland that is it thank you very much I just got worried actually that the app is doing July they said maybe August now isn't it great to have transit officials who you actually are like I think he really rides the bus actually he actually rides the bus but I don't envy Greg's job because everybody's always got something really bad to say about the bus usually people who don't ride it so don't you know but keep it up we're very lucky to have you Greg next up we've got the nascent's corner team so we have a trio starting with Lindsay Holt who is a third and fourth grade teacher at the breakwater school she started her career teaching at the Telluride Mountain School where her love of teaching experiential based education began she is excited about sharing her love learning outdoors with her students in Portland and believes that building a natural place space at school is the perfect way to bring nature to the students Lindsay loves hiking and skiing with her husband and students and looks forward to sharing her love of the natural world with her new baby this summer and we also have Molly Thompson who is an artist educator designer wife mother marketing director community builder and business owner not necessarily in that order who loves living in Portland from 2005 through 2013 Molly was the director of early childhood education at the breakwater school where she helped to inspire and lead the effort to redesign and construct the natural playground at nascent's corner park which is really quite something um and we have Laura Newman uh who used to teach eighth grade eight graders excuse me how to write five paragraph essays before discovering her job at portland trails and then starting up the school ground greening coalition in 2003 she lives in portland with her husband their two boys and a spotted dog and has discovered the key to happiness is playing ice hockey my team has an opening so we'll also talk in the intermission okay can you hear me remember your frustrated parent pointing toward the back door and demanding you go play outside remember how excited you were when a teacher granted extra recess or took your science class outside there's a reason that adults do this it's because kids move think and interact differently outdoors whether you are two or 72 play is learning when children muck about outside with stumps and rocks and sand and water with trees to climb and bushes to hide in magical creative discoveries occur this is what inspired me to lead the redesign of the playground at break water school and nascent's corner park so i embarked on a renovation journey first reviewing the steps that are followed for most of our country's playgrounds and voila the result is exactly what it looks like in the catalog hard to break very few movable parts easy to maintain lasts around 15 to 20 years but this is not what we did and it was not accomplished in three easy steps instead we held a community design charrette inviting neighbors parents city staff teachers little league coaches parents grandparents and children to work with landscape architects excuse me to develop a design that supported children's play once we had our design we held community events to raise awareness about children spending more time looking at screens and less time playing outside than ever before five years many events several design revisions and one big drainage project later approvals were obtained ground was broken construction began imagine being a kid watching this happen to your playground math and physics were all happening right outside our window my second graders were researching and writing and drawing it all children learn best by being involved in authentic experiences these kids have a sense of ownership having participated in the creation of this place they will always remember that as the project was being built we celebrated not only to acknowledge what was achieved but to bring attention to the space and draw in the community my fellow teachers say that children are playing more imaginatively curriculum is coming outdoors this spring students will study farming and plant organic produce and pollinator friendly gardens they're actively learning to play a role in making the space their own this is changing our school the new playground has spaces for gathering together and spaces for spreading out for exploring and for mucking about eight years after we began phase one is completed and phase two phase two is soon to be underway and if you stop by and play at the park at the corner of bright and copisic magical creative discoveries are bound to occur i actually had a pretty good time playing around in that park once i was on a food hike of the uh for a city trail that's right we had a little stopover um actually i remember when i was a kid growing up uh the playground around the corner from my house was like this weird wooden structure i'm pretty sure it was built of like old railroad ties like creosote and everything and i got so many splinters and everything and then they tore it down and they put in one of those ones that they showed on the screen earlier and it was like done didn't want to go so hopefully they'll put one back but next up we have elise moody roberts um one of elise's earliest childhood memories was in kindergarten being coaxed up wildcat mountain by her parents with chocolate as she as she herring boned up the alpine skiing trails on cross country skis she was made fun of by snowboarders and stopped by several concerned older adults incredulous that anyone let alone a family as young as theirs had opted not to take the chairlift although they ran out of chocolate elise knew it was worth the original humiliation she felt once skiing down the forested backside of the mountain elise was often picked up by her father from sporting events with a pair of running shoes in tow his surprise method of transportation home now in her 20s elise has left her qualms about standing out as different or even crazy behind and is passionate about educating others to understand that alternative modes of transportation are numerous beneficial and absolutely sane and enjoyable elise is compelled to change our motorized culture for future generations and inspired by the impact our children and youth make elise loves exploring via foot canoe bike or ski two of her most enjoyable pastimes are reading and eating cannolis mine too experiences outside of work that she's found most rewarding has been volunteering at long creek youth development center and being a part of the portland mentoring alliance and her greatest gift in life is her twin brother stanis shout out to stanis i'm disappointed there's no cowbell this year but this makes more sense with biking thank you all for coming all right um here we go so i moved to the east end last year um and i joined as a walk leader volunteer and i'm ecstatic to be working as the walking school bus program coordinator at east end community school um our school was chosen as the pilot site for the new main walking school bus program which is a partnership of the main cc the bicycle collision of main and the main do t all which we were deeply grateful for so what is a walking school bus logistically it is like the yellow school bus each student is given a bus stop at a precise time examples being 747 and 808 where they join their fellow walkers and our adult volunteer walk leaders arriving at school all together at the end of nexatus if you will our volunteer walk leaders are the backbone of our program they each choose one morning to commit to for example every Wednesday we have five parent volunteers then retirees college students and young and old professionals all are vetted and trained and truly are the south of the earth not only do they offer students and their families the opportunity to walk to school but they teach pedestrian safety some walkers you can walking by themselves over time whereas others stay with the walking school bus as it is a special social time for them and they've fostered relationships with their walk leaders the kids take great pride as they walk through rain sleep and shine and they are aware of the environmental impact they make we have frequent walker cards so they can track their distance and we can celebrate their mileage the walking school bus has a plethora of physical social emotional and cognitive benefits for our walkers the exercise positive social interactions new friends and becoming part of a group um reveals positive changes in school and at home it also has improved absenteeism we have two routes we have our manjoy hill route and this is our kennedy park route um we have 23 current volunteers and two subs they're all neighbors so it's a community connector and fosters cultural exchange as we have many new members new mainers asylum seekers refugees um so it's great to be able to bring these people together that are neighbors that may not interact otherwise um we're looking at developing oh we're looking at developing a new route from the manjoy south development um so we'll be looking for new volunteers um as you can see we celebrate holidays this was read across america day before we had crusher join us for winter walk to school day and this is a national program so it's nice for everyone to know that we're part of something bigger and this is happening all around the country um here's us with the portland fire department it feels great to be supported um we walk right by the fire department but by the whole community um and finally a thank a thank you to coffee by design and union bagel as well as hilltop superhet a complete surprise our volunteers expect nothing um but they were given some tokens i mean we walk when it is below freezing so it was nice to offer them a hot coffee um if they warm up their hands and their ride back i have some literature in the back if you're interested in learning more about the school's program or if you'd like to volunteer perhaps you're a parent um and we can get you registered so thank you so much i always see sarah kushman or rob leading the walking school bus on the hill in the mornings and i was like honk my bike horn and like give them a big wave and you can't embarrass sarah so she's always like hi top and the kids there's let's go so before we get into the next round of presenters we got a couple announcements to get through um first off a big thank you to space gallery for hosting us this evening uh thank you to yes another thank you to ctn for filming tonight and the video will be made available on their website um and portland trails website soon so there's a few ways that you can get involved um or that you can you know watch the video again if you if you want uh and then also i have some announcements here uh ways that you can get involved um if you didn't already know you can check out portland trails online um at trails dot org i've always marveled at the fact that they got trails dot org think about that for a second like before somebody even knew like what the internet was they had to be like we're we're getting trails dot org they got it so go and also a new beer uh has been brewed in support of portland trails by yeah a collaboration between rising tide oxbow brewing uh shipyard bunker lone pine and grew it yeah all came together for portland trails it's called portland trail mix and uh it will release publicly on thursday tomorrow at oxbow brewing 4 30 to 7 go drink some of that beer also we've got coming up um the gorp party um which uh kara alluded to um i was also uh i was at the gorp party last year and i actually i scored big as she said i want a boat couldn't believe my girlfriend lila was on vacation so i sent her a picture it was like a boat on her car she's like check out what i just got um but that is on uh april 28th um at arabica on commercial street right okay thanks um also coming up is the 10k trail to ale uh september 18th and the registration party is on may 19th um at portland pie locations so go register and party and eat pizza um and then finally uh my final announcement before we get on to the next round um this is where i'm going to deviate from the script a little bit if i may um portland trails has been really good to me in the two years since i moved to portland i use their trails all the time uh when i moved here and was trying to find a job and orient myself um they didn't they didn't give me a job but they were very nice to me through that whole through that whole process and i really appreciate it last year i was a presenter um here and uh also so like i said at the gort party i want a boat um and my uh when my landlord rachel who's in the audience tonight said you gotta get that boat out of my yard um portland trails nice enough to temporarily store it on their property so i really appreciated that um so all of which makes it particularly shameful and ridiculous that i i admit to you tonight i let my membership lapse but i have here a completed uh application to renew my membership so i i ask i ask that you join me after this and we form a big line and we sign up um portland trails i often think that every city needs um every city deserves a portland trails we're lucky enough to have portland trails here so do your part and become a member in support and uh without further ado we will get onto the next round um starting with steven wells who is the senior merchandiser at l l bean and also a portland trails board member he is a southerner by birth by way of richmond virginia um steven found his way north to main some 14 years ago and he's loved every minute of it he traded a suit for a paddle and he tries to get out on the water as much as his family allows he's also been known to spend time on dry land running 100 mile races as a registered main guide he loves being outdoors and sharing that passion with everyone he works at l bean uh he's a member of the portland trails board of directors and most importantly the father of two awesome kids when he isn't working in freeport or on a paddle board presumably not working or being a dad what else can he be found doing visiting many of portland's fine breweries many of which can be found right alongside portland's trails that's right so please welcome uh steven wells all right it's going a little micro paddle adventure here all right let's do it okay when most of us look at this map we see all the great work portland trials has done over the last 25 years well i see that and more and what is highlighted here is a trail around portland but on the water this is a route i follow while surfing navigating portland in july of 2015 there were six of us that day in buried craft including one canoe two kayaks three paddle boards we started in the early morning in the persumptuous river at walton park and rode the tide out here we have just passed under 295 we're going by the burley mile property this route was 21 and a half miles including one bay three rivers two and a half miles of portaging and one bazillion strainers and we tackled all that in under 12 hours here we are headed up the four river with tomson's point in the background all told in this adventure we paddled the persumptuous river navigated boat wake and confused lobstermen and casco bay paddled against the tide up the four river and rested here on wing fleet stocks carried boats and boards through west brook and paddled back down the persumptuous got to home so the juxtaposition of urban and natural in this adventure was pretty amazing albeit stark sometimes and that all of the urban was planned as pictured here or even welcome but it was part of the journey while the presence of the city was all around us it also felt distant at the same time the circumnavigation of portland presents a view of the city that many have neither seen nor will this picture in the last were taken at the straudwater dam this truly is an urban adventure on one of portland's many great trails this one just happened to be blue there's some variation of that tim beatley in his article the value of urban trails says many of our best urban trail networks occur along water he goes on the say many cities are going even further now commonly thinking about the potential of blue trails that exist water in the water here's a map of what i think is one of the best developed blue water trails in the country the milwaukee urban water trail which defines a blue water trail is a liquid parkway along a river lake or coastline that provides recreation recreational educational and or scenic experiences those experiences literally surround us in portland many of portland trails run alongside water trails here's a view of the straw water trail from the river back cove that for some scott and four river trails in sabaga to see which i've also paddled or other examples and like a traditional land trail maintenance is necessary and sometimes much more difficult here's my group tackling our first river obstacles of the one bazillion on the surroud order i would argue that navigating these obstacles was the most difficult part of the circumnav in the biggest hazard the other portland organ post an annual event called the big float this event highlights the need to care for and provide better access to the willamette river that event's founders say the mission of the event is to give our river a big hug there are parts of our rivers that need some hugs too this was a gorgeous yet non-navigable part of the upper straw order when carrying boats over this landscape it is hard to remember that just around the corner is a major throughway in the city westbrook nature is a remedy and is right at our back door so not all of the circumnavigation was floating lazily down a river here the group is preparing our boards and boats for the two and a half mile portage through westbrook while the honks and shouts from the cars were less than encouraging there was pizza and beer in town big carrot there were plenty of opportunities to utilize portland trails along our paddle here we are using for sunscot river trail to portage around the not to be messed with for sunscot falls you don't have to spend much time on our trails to see how much water is a part of the experience bluewater trails have the ability to connect people with the water around them and promote stewardship of this resource water is medicine it can heal what hurts us reduce our daily stress and just make a smile i am for one looking forward to paddling official bluewater portland trails in the future that's it thank you you can shut that off now let's just leave that up there for a minute let's just i don't know if you guys know this but i have a boat um and i uh so i was pretty excited when he was oh man it's like i can but i don't think my boat's gonna i don't think my boat's gonna make it nobody we get in fights when we like put it on top of the car so carrying it like two miles probably not gonna work um anyway so next up i'm really excited about this one we've got a group from king middle school um we've got yes coming in the stage we've got charlie taj delia siri and oliver um with behind the scenes help from jonathan and josiah so get another round of applause before i begin my presentation i will our our presentation i'd like to give a shout out to jonathan and josias who aren't up here right now claps hi i'm charlie and my classmates and i are here to talk to you today about our fall expedition rethink recharge react the focus of this expedition was to promote environmental stewardship and knowledge in both our school and our city we started by hosting energy source themed debates and ended by showing our student-made psas at our culminating event our guiding questions are always an important part of our expeditions they direct our learning for this expedition two of our questions were um two of our most important questions were how what energy source will will most reliably take us into the future and how does engineering affect our energy as part as part of our expedition we split up into energy sources such as nuclear wind hydro etc we then debated against energy sources using knowledge regained from our research we made PSA videos about actions individuals can take to make the world a greener place mine was about upcycling which is the process of taking post-consumer material old clothes and such and turning them into better things it is a green alternative to throw and close away another topic of climate awareness is people power people power is how people travel while being environmentally conscious like taking the public bus biking or carpooling another great way you can help the environment is through composting by composting you can waste less food and save money on trash bags and since we are have garbage to garden here in portland composting can become even easier and you should all support garbage to garden because it's great my ps a was about eating less meat did you know annually in the us 50 billion hamburgers are eaten if average american decreased their burger consumption by one a week we could save 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide another ps a topic was turn off the lights the plan was to try and get people to turn off the lights just switch to cfl's did you know that if every household in Maine changed to cfl's there would be a deduction of 235.46 tons of carbon emissions in our technology education class we specifically looked at wind energy and we even built our own turbines wind energy is a clean and renewable alternative to dirty fossil fuels that are leading our world into climate change during our expedition we were contacted by an organization called 350.org they were organizing climate marches all over the world for the climate summit happening in France sadly terrorist attacks forced them to cancel all of their marches we then took matters into our own hands and made our own march for both the climate and Paris yeah we started marching from king then proceeded through during oaks up melan and continued on congress we chanted what do we want climate action when do we want it we yelled this at the top of our lungs so our throat sore sore but the atmosphere and energy were so great we couldn't help loving every minute our march ended at city hall where a speech was given by the mayor and various other adults students recited poetry they had written and our friend jonathan wrote and performed your song uh we were also given a key to the city on december 17 we culminated our energy expedition the students in the photo were chosen to speak about our expedition explaining what we had been working on we had an exhibition of wind turbines and psas climate change is a looming environmental calamity that can be prevented if everyone takes some of the small individual actions we have named tonight the adults in this world have left us kids to navigate this dilemma and unless we start taking these steps now there will be no escape recharge rethink react was an eye-opening experience for me as i was awakened to the not so cold truth that is facing our world and with this truth i intend to spread the word across our currently climate troubled country in hopes of bringing us to a consensus on the problematic issue and i believe as well as hope that my classmates will be the same thank you for your time man that is so cool when i was in middle school i was like i want to ride where i'm going and i want to ride home it's like i didn't really see the utility of the bus until i realized that like i didn't have to go where i said i was going when i got on the bus so this is a free marketing material for you greg by the way capture that younger generation um spanning generations here next next up we've got lori uh who is aarp mains state director um she leads the state's advocacy and education efforts on health and financial security and livable communities issues statewide lori oversees aarp mains efforts to engage cities and towns in creating livable communities for people of all ages with a specific focus on economic development and aging in place living on portland's east end lori spends a lot of time on the east end trail and the east end beach with her husband matthew and new rescue puppy sophie they are committed to the preservation and accessibility of this beautiful green space and all it offers portland's residents lori's favorite beverage after a hike in the mountains of maloca is a spanish beer estrella in her next life she wants to be on broadway don't we all okay whoever put me after that group you're in trouble so why is aarp here we advocate for people 50 plus and their families aarp no longer stands for the american association of retired persons that's because almost a third of our members are still working and and uh that is growing and the not so distant past people retired and moved to retirement villages and very non-main places such as florida or arizona today the vast majority of people 50 plus want to age in place in their current home or community such stay-in-put plans have a been big impact on main the nation's 23rd state think 1820 and now the oldest state according to census estimates from 2014 88 percent of manors are age 65 plus and the median age is 44.1 the highest in the nation now think about a typical main home or town most houses are too story most areas are particularly walkable and for much of the year the weather is cold we are hearty and rugged the realities of our architecture terrain and climate though can make it hard to age in place aarp has established the network of age-friendly communities as one way to respond to the wants and needs of the aging world war two babies to join a municipalities top officials commit to working with local citizens to assess the community's age-related needs create a plan and implement it these are towns that have joined the network the top ones the ones on the bottom are in process portland was the first go portland 66 000 population newry near beckle has 340 residents age-friendly does not mean old people places it's not retirement villages or 55 and over developments or adult only buildings or gated communities or assisted living or nursing homes while aarp main focuses on the needs of the 50 plus to us age-friendly means friendly for people of all ages after all a street that's safe for a 70-year-old across is also safe for a seven-year-old a 17-year-old and perhaps and we hope a 12-point news communities in the network are encouraged to work within a framework that's often to refer to the eight domains of livability the theory behind this is that what happens in the eight domains has a direct impact on the quality of life of older adults and people of all ages services and features within the domains help make a community a home for a lifetime any needed transitions can take place in the home and community you know and trust so i'm now on almost on slide 11 and have been talking for almost three fast minutes what may be you may be asking does any of this have to do with green spaces and trails in the mission of portland trails here's what domain one of the livability domains is about outdoor spaces and buildings in other words public spaces people of all ages especially older people who might otherwise become isolated need places they can go to socialize move around enjoy fresh air and a change of scenery domain two of the eight domains is about transportation which since the mid 20th century has been dominated by cars that needs to also include ways to safely walk places ride a bike and use public transit when public spaces are age-friendly and people-powered transportation is a viable option people of all ages including our 230,000 members statewide will spend a day in the park hit the streets go for a casual walk or strenuous hike along our state's trails you can learn more about what we're doing to engage and support local leaders and community residents by subscribing to our newsletter or visiting these sites or you can just contact me directly thank you I had a couple AARP jokes but I'm going to pass next up we have Laurie Boxer-Makomer Laurie is a main attorney whose legal practice is focused on bicycle and pedestrian law and advocacy which is like how many are those really she is on the board of directors of the bicycle coalition of Maine and is a member of the US bike law network Laurie's first bike was a purple big wheel which she can still remember riding fearlessly and religiously up and down her childhood street she now commutes around Portland on her purple big wheel now I'm just kidding on her orange mid-80s chanelli which gives her the same sense of freedom as when she was five Laurie regularly can be found trail running with her dog Lexi she eats lots of avocados and loves swimming in the ocean last summer she started section hiking the long trail with her daughter Tess and another mother daughter team please welcome Laurie oh okay we'll go with it um so yes my name is Laurie Boxer oh I'm gonna all right um so we're gonna start you off with this slide from Copenhagen Denmark which is designed to get people out of their cars and onto their bicycles and walking and if you think that uh this is an idea you might like you too may want to ask your doctor about giving up your car um Copenhagen is a safe place to ride at your bike for many reasons including infrastructure lots of bicyclists on the roadway and drive her empathy and early childhood educations which have been going on for about seven decades United States is starting to pick up on this idea in Washington DC we now have mandatory bicycle education for all second graders which is amazing and this is about access access in so many different ways in Beijing we are also working with access we have a half million people that are have access to bicycles and are using Beijing's bike share program and it's growing there's another 10 000 bikes being added this year in Maine we too have bike share programs here's our bike share program in Norway Maine other exciting things going on in Maine include people giving up their minivans for cargo bikes and the increase of sharers on our roadways telling us that we can take the travel lane when we need to another thing that's encouraging that's happening in Maine is that people are starting to understand and enforce our free-foot law which requires drivers to give at least three feet sometimes more to bicyclists when passing them and also to pedestrians other laws that everyone should know about is that it's unlawful to take a right turn in front of a bicyclist if it's going to interfere with their lawful path to travel same thing with Doring and we now need to yield to pedestrians even if they're just showing intent to cross bicycle coalition of Maine is doing amazing things with education and this is bicycle coalition of Maine's bike for new manors programs program 12 hours of safety and some time on the road and these people all get bikes these are not participants of the bikes for new manors program they're prostitutes in the Milan Italy and in Milan Italy they're required to wear high visibility clothing to perform the tricks of their train i also wanted to point out that there are safety issues on on multi-use trails we're starting seeing more and more cases where unfortunately our free for like their friends are causing crashes and bicyclists crashing into one another and pedestrians gp cog here in portland is doing amazing work check out their website they are tracking bicycle and ped track accidents or sorry crashes all across the city and these are the high concentration intersections so we're hoping to use that data to make better intersections like this one in Davis California as you can see there are high visibility cues for everyone a double crosswalk for bicyclists and for pedestrians so everyone stays safe other data being used interestingly Strava data usually athletes use this to you know brag to their friends and communicate about their their achievements and accomplishments but city planners and non-profit organizations state agencies can use the same data to advocate for bicyclists and pedestrians oh this is a bonus slide that shows some of the new infrastructure in Washington DC and this bike path goes right down the middle but there's some controversy over whether that's actually the safest place for people to be finally I want to make sure everyone leaves here tonight knowing about vision zero which is a safety road safety initiative happening in cities throughout the world and we're not one of them and we need to be basically the idea behind vision zero is that no loss of life is acceptable and it's important for us all to think about ways to have zero deaths on our roadways thanks if you're going to Milan leave the hives at home if you want to avoid confusion so i think that's it for our presentations tonight unless i'm correct me if i'm wrong i think that's it i won't leave anybody out just a couple quick reminders tomorrow again there's a beer launch that will help you'll join the new beer it's gonna be an oxbow brewing 4 30 to 7 the gort party will be thursday april 28 check that out definitely monthly trail volunteer days like i said go to trails dot org and i'm sure you can find information about that you can volunteer help build the trails that you use and love the trail to al 10k is sunday september 18th and you can still register there's some registration parties coming up there's a bayside 5k 5k 9 excuse me that means so you can bring your dogs and you can also consult the flurry about whether your dog will cause some legal issues november but that is november 6th that's coming up and then the portland brewer portland brewers holiday dash is in december so get that on your horizon let's get one more round of applause for all of our presenters tonight they did a fabulous job i can't what i came away with tonight is we're so lucky to have so many people in our community doing such incredible work so now we have some time to mingle have some more drinks talk to the people who you just saw present and thanks for coming and thank you for the trails